Ode Ode
Blue jay vocalizes a clash on the color wheel, tulip heads removed one by one with a golf wedge. It’s something in the frequency. Expectations are high. There’s a reason they call it the nervous system. Someone in bed at 11 AM impersonates an empty house. Dear god. The sharpener’s dragged his cart from the shed. His bell rings out of the twelfth century to a neighborhood traumatizing its food with dull knives. A hammer creeps to the edge of a reno and peers over. Inching up its pole, a tentative flag. What is the source? Oh spring, my heart is in my mouth.
May 4, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Karen Solie
Margins of Modernism: A New Historicism in Art Margins of Modernism: A New Historicism in Art
In the paintings of Silke Otto-Knapp and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, there's an unending entanglement, and dialogue, between the present and the past.
May 4, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Al-Assad Al-Assad
Al-Assad An autocrat named al-Assad Decided he’d not spare the rod. His thugs kill at will, But we wonder still: What happens when he’s shot his wad? Some say his reaction is odd: They say this Assad is no clod. But he learned from pop To play the bad cop. Who knows how it ends? Maybe God.
Apr 28, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Tony Kushner’s Intelligent Homosexuals Tony Kushner’s Intelligent Homosexuals
Without turning into sentimental left-wing pageantry, Kushner’s new play illuminates radicalism and makes art of sectarian dreams and failures.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Margaret Spillane
Talking With W.S. Merwin Talking With W.S. Merwin
The Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress talks about spontaneous demonstrations, his hope for poetry, and why he doesn't read criticism anymore.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jordan Davis
Islam’s Nonviolent Tradition Islam’s Nonviolent Tradition
History is replete with peaceful role models like the “Frontier Gandhi” of colonial India.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Michael Shank
Same Old New Atheism: On Sam Harris Same Old New Atheism: On Sam Harris
Scientists, Sam Harris writes, are the saints of circumspection. If that’s true, then with his writing on religion and morality Harris breaks the mold.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jackson Lears
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Elizabeth Bishop's Poems and Prose; James Gleick's The Information.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Do They Dream? Spelunking With Werner Herzog Do They Dream? Spelunking With Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Joe Wright's Hanna; Andreas Lust's The Robber; Daniel and Diego Vega's Octubre.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
We Have a Winner! We Have a Winner!
Congratulations to The Nation’s new puzzlemeisters, elected by Nation puzzle-solvers to don the mantle of the late Frank W. Lewis, our cryptic-crossword constructor of six decades.
Apr 27, 2011 / Feature / The Nation